With the characteristic subtlety of a claw hammer, the media are telling us that the recent cold weather will subsume earnings.

Sarah Lawrence College

Marek Fuchs

At that, let’s back up. Blaming the weather (too hot, too cold, too-too) is normally tantamount to a prank.There is no fashion miss or merchandising blunder that a retailer won’t blame on the latest light breeze or sun shower. The media, for its ever-passive part, often simply play along, letting self-justification pass as fact.

But I think we can all agree on this: the polar vortex did damage to everything from outer extremities to retail sales. The weather was truly bad and frozen fingers can’t flip through wallets.

But thaw that thought for a moment.

After all, what we stand to see this week is a degree of complexity that goes beyond: “Retail Earnings All Lame.”

Indeed, there will be subtleties galore. Look for them. The media, which always look for a straight story lines so their articles amount to more than a mere collection of words, will not. They will, instead, force-feed us a coherence that tends to be absent in real life — and is certainly not a factor in how retail survived the polar vortex.

Maybe a shovel and road salt ETF would be outperforming the benchmarks, but, alas, there are none — and consumer discretionary stocks are down year-to-date. There are obviously more economic factors than frost hurting the sector, but as any glance at the retail earnings preview headlines makes clear, hope seems all but lost based on a temporary weather front, which may spell, at minimum, near-term opportunity at hand, as brains defrost and traders and journalists come to their better senses.

Here’s what you need to look for and what may be in short supply:

Perspective. Bad earnings will be met with hellfire and damnation headlines, but — please. The Arctic cold blast presumably made a mess of January’s business, but let’s face it: January is traditionally a close-out month for retailers, perhaps the least important month on their calendar. Business can easily (and I apologize for this groaner ahead of time) warm up.

Geography. The polar vortex hit east of the Rockies, stretching down into the south into places like Georgia and Florida. But be a stickler for geography. If a retailer with the majority of their stores in the West is whining about the polar vortex, they are merely whistling Dixie — where, ironically, there was snow.

Timing. Even at it’s worst, the polar vortex could not have ruined the entire quarter, from root to branch. Don’t forget that it wasn’t too long ago (Jan. 14, to be precise) that we were reading headlines like this: “Wall Street Rebounds as Retail Sales Point to Healthy Economy”

Retail sales increased 0.7% in December from the prior month, surpassing the 0.3% gain economists had predicted and retail inventories — up 0.6%, excluding autos — looked good, too. A chill in January doesn’t preclude a decent December and a decent December might imply a decent comeback as the weather turns.

That is why it is key, central and essential to bend an ear to every retailer’s conference call. If business was bad, when did it turn bad? And did that coincide with the bad weather?

That earnings conference call standard: “Can you give us some color on the quarter?” is actually really important here.

In the end, the media are apt to see this week’s torrent of retail earnings through the lens of the polar vortex. The truth of the matter, though, is that considering the complexity of weather fronts and the retail calendar — that’s stunted thought.

Marek Fuchs was a stockbroker for Shearson Lehman Brothers before becoming a journalist who wrote The New York Times’ “County Lines” column for six years. Fuchs speaks regularly on business and journalism issues. He is the author of “A Cold-Blooded Business” and “Local Heroes: Portraits of American Volunteer Firefighters.” Fuchs is on the writing faculty at Sarah Lawrence College and serves as a volunteer fire fighter. Follow himon Twitter.

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